1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to eyewear. More particularly, the present invention relates to a specially designed eyewear unit or assembly.
2. Description of the Related Art
Eyewear styles change frequently and fashionable eyewear can be costly to purchase. In the past, eyewear style has been defined by a frame formed at least partially of metal and/or resin based materials. As such, the eyewear was heavy and the style and size of the lenses were fixed based upon the frame. To accommodate the fashion whims and optical needs of the public, hundreds of eyewear styles with differing lens sizes and shapes must currently be manufactured. To manufacture a frame for each style typically requires a large manufacturing run of each size and shape. This is costly and can result in a cost that is not recovered if the eyewear style is not popular enough to sell sufficient quantities.
Recently, so-called rimless eyewear has been introduced in which temples and a bridge are directly secured to the lenses with threaded fasteners, posts or the like, which require holes to extend through the lenses. Such rimless eyewear has been quickly adopted within the fashion world. The rimless eyewear is very light due to the lack of a heavy frame around the lenses.
However, there are several disadvantages of the truly rimless eyewear. First, the holes used to secure a bridge and a pair of temples to the lenses must be drilled very precisely. Thus, most optical technicians are not able to perform the drilling in-house and outside lens preparation services must be used. Such outside services are costly and add additional time to the eyewear supply process such that end users need to wait longer for the eyewear.
Further, drilling the necessary holes in the eyewear can lead to lens breakage, even by the outside services. The cost of replacement lenses obviously must be calculated into the end cost of the eyewear, which further increases the cost of eyewear.
Finally, the lens materials often may not have the sufficient strength for the long term use and abuse often attributed to some eyeglass wearers. Many persons in the eyewear industry, therefore, have been trying to find a better alternative to the rimless eyewear constructions currently found in the industry.